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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685034">Nights Like These</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormyGaddon/pseuds/StormyGaddon'>StormyGaddon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Goro suffering from his past mistakes, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stress, Thunder and Lightning, Trauma, Very slight Royal spoilers, akeshu - Freeform, post cannon, shuake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:55:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,686</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormyGaddon/pseuds/StormyGaddon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Times passes, but the memories never seem to fade.</p><p>The rainy season always brings with it thunderstorms, and with that, many sleepless nights for both Akira and Goro.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>127</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nights Like These</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Special thanks to DaisyDogOx for Beta reading this!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everything happens in an instant. The wind is howling, rain is pelting the sides of the apartment, and lighting flashes, followed by a crackle of thunder. For most of the residents of Tokyo, nothing is out of the norm. Thunderstorms were common for this time of year, after all. </p><p> </p><p>However, the Kurusu-Akechi household is not like the others in the way that they didn’t have a certain anxious ex-hitman living with them.</p><p> </p><p>Goro sits up suddenly, breathing heavily, panting as he looks around the room. Nothing seems familiar and it’s as if he's seeing everything for the first time. He places a hand over his chest and his heart beats rapidly. The room is dark and he tries to make sense of what’s happening. The sound happens again. And he notices that it’s outside his apartment. </p><p> </p><p>His apartment? Is that where he is?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> No, this isn’t where I live.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>This place, it isn’t anything like his tiny apartment. For one, the blanket pooled around his waist isn’t his, nor has he ever seen it before. In the corner sits a desk with a laptop on it, and Goro quickly realises that’s not his either. Neither is the one sitting next to it. <em> Two laptops? But why? Who in the world needs two laptops? </em></p><p> </p><p>The walls and shelves of the room are decorated with trinkets of unknown origin. From the curtains to the paint on the walls, this isn’t a place he’s ever seen before. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get home. </p><p> </p><p>Goro goes to get up when he realises there is a person sleeping beside him and he begins to shake. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Why can’t I remember who this is? Where am I? How did I get here? Did one of Shido’s men do this? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>A flash of light illuminates the room, and again Goro hears that sound from before. It’s like a gunshot as it echoes throughout the night. </p><p> </p><p>With his heart still racing, Goro tries to understand how he got to this point, or where he even is. Bits and pieces begin to fall into place. But it’s not enough. There are still too many things that don’t line up correctly. Memories that are incomplete or don’t make sense.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Joker. Phantom Thieves. Casino. Police station. Pulling the trigger of a gun.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p><em> Why isn’t anything making any goddamn sense? </em> All he knows is that he needs to get out of here, away from this stranger and back to <em> his </em>apartment. </p><p> </p><p>When he moves to get up, a knot in his stomach stops him from advancing any further, twisting until he feels as if he’s going to throw up. He finds himself clutching at his chest without knowing why.</p><p> </p><p>Meowing is what catches his attention next. It isn’t very loud, more like a whine, and Goro finds himself looking around the room again for the source of the noise. Another flash lights up the room for a moment, and he sees a pair of eyes peering up at him from behind the strange man in the bed. It’s a cat, but he knows this cat right?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> His name is… </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Goro has to think hard on who this cat is. Why it’s here in the first place. Then, it comes to him: it’s Kurusu’s cat; Morgana. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Then, did that mean the man in his bed is Kurusu? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>In the distance, thunder follows again the previous flash of lightning and Goro flinches, covering his face with his hands. He gasps. However, when can’t feel the oxygen filling his lungs he begins to panic and breathe harder and harder until his whole body is shaking again. His thoughts run at a mile a minute and why the <em> fuck </em> is he here with Kurusu in this apartment with this damn cat and--</p><p> </p><p>Why isn’t Kurusu moving? Is he even breathing?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> November 20th. In the integration room.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Yes of course he’s breathing, why wouldn’t he be?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You made it look like a suicide. He’s dead.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Kurusu isn’t dead, what could have killed him—</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> A point blank shot to the forehead.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>And in an instant, it all comes rushing back. Every memory up until that moment in the interrogation room flashing by in rapid succession. One after another, fond memories of winning against Kurusu in pool, of losing in chess in return. And even that time Goro looked at Kusuru when he thought he wasn’t looking, only to catch him staring right back. </p><p> </p><p>Fuck, he’d shot him. </p><p> </p><p>He’d really shot him. But not only that, Goro remembers every moment of it. The blood that dripped from his forehead. Eyes that stared wide and empty. How Kurusu fell forward onto that table with more blood staining the surface. </p><p> </p><p>He’d fucked up. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> But why? Why would he be lying here beside me then?  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Goro curls his fingers through his hair, trying to catch his breath. All of the people he’s killed, they’ve always been in the metaverse. Even the guard back in the interrogation room had been a cognition. One by one the faces come into view. </p><p> </p><p>There was Ishiki as his first leading all the way up to Okumura. Who was after him? He doesn’t want to see their faces again, but he knows he has to figure out where Kurusu falls on the list of his victims.  If Kurusu was a victim, why is he here now?</p><p> </p><p>Something still isn’t right.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> A fake? Had there been a fake Kurusu? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Goro looks back to the form beside him and confirms once again that it is Kurusu. He runs a hand over his face, and he’s warm, and breathing. His chest really rises and falls.</p><p> </p><p>Of course Kurus’s alive.That was proven after he saw the Phantom Thieves in Shido’s palace shortly after. </p><p> </p><p>Goro means to gently stir Kurusu awake but instead he grabs Kurusu by his shirt. His hands tremble as he begins shaking Kurusu until he’s awake. For a moment Kurusu blinks, sitting up straight then pulling Goro’s hands off his shirt and holding tightly onto them. </p><p> </p><p>“Goro? Hey, everything’s okay,” Kurusu whispers.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Since when did he have the right to address me so comfortably? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Goro tries to look away, the weight of Kurusu’s gaze nearly overwhelming. But Kurusu begins speaking a line that seems so cemented in his mind it’s almost methodical, “Hey, I need you to look at me, okay? It’s currently June 10th at two fifty-eight in the morning, and we’re in our apartment in Shibuya. You’re okay, and I’m okay. No one’s hurt. It’s only raining outside.” </p><p> </p><p>Goro tries to speak but no words come to him. They’re all a jumble, tripping over each other, and he’s unable to get anything out. Instead he closes his eyes, shaking his head as tears begin to sting. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> That’s not right, that can’t be right. I live in Kichijoji, alone. I don't have a cat. I don't have a husband.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Husband? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>When he opens his eyes again, Goro looks down at his hand. Resting there on his finger is indeed a band. His breaths become shakier as the memories struggle to line up correctly. He had gotten married, but when? His chest aches again and he clutches at it.</p><p> </p><p>It burns. Like hot fire coursing through his veins and he needs it to stop before it consumes him. Kurusu is saying something to him but he can’t hear it. He can’t hear anything as his mind screams at him because he’s being burned alive by some unseen force. He’s hot, melting under the combined heat of Kurusu next to him and whatever was wrong with his body.</p><p> </p><p>He pushes away from him but it’s not enough, the pain still persists in his chest. Why is it hurting so much? What happened to him? Goro pulls off his shirt in an attempt to find the source  of the pain. </p><p> </p><p>He freezes.</p><p> </p><p>This? He’d never seen something on his body like this before. </p><p> </p><p>Near his heart, probably off only by an inch or so, is the unmistakable mark of a bullet wound. He’s seen it before, on many of Shido's men. Men, who’d slipped up or were  just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Goro? </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I’ve never been shot. And if I had, it most certainly wouldn’t be healed already.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>No. That’s wrong. He had been shot. Not only had he been shot, but he’d been killed by none other than a puppet version of himself. Two shots, fired nearly simultaneously, and one bullet piercing his chest. Goro remembers his head hitting the floor, the blurry room around him as shadows converged. <em> But what happened next? </em></p><p> </p><p>At the sound of crackling thunder, Goro is brought back to the present again. He holds his head, trying his damnedest to make sense of this nonsense. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> There should be a reason I’m here and not dead in the metaverse, so why? Why am I here? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Thoughts of an alternate reality come to mind. One where he’s not quite alive but not dead either. Is this where he is? Was that his fate back then?</p><p> </p><p> <em> Who am I now? </em></p><p> </p><p>“Kurusu , what the hell is happening,” Goro mumbles. He can’t think straight. It’s all too much at one time and he screams.  He doesn’t care if anyone within earshot can hear him, he doesn’t care what he looks like. He just needs to understand what’s happening . Nothing is okay and nothing is right.  </p><p> </p><p>However, despite that, why does he feel calmer when Akira places a hand to his knee? Goro keeps his gaze down, still breathing heavily and snot now dripping down his face. Akira reaches toward a side table and hands Goro a tissue and he takes it without question. </p><p> </p><p>Akira takes Goro’s hand in his, running his thumb over his wedding band “Do you know how long we’ve been married?” Akira asks.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> No. Because I’m not married. I would never— </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Six--” Goro takes a deep breath, wrapping both hands around Akira’s, pulling his head up to finally look him in the eyes “Six months, we’ve been married for six months.” Goro leans forward, placing his head against Akira’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>The events in his mind begin to finally align correctly. And as they do, Goro realises that it’s only them now. No Morgana in sight, probably having left once he realised the familiar situation that the group had found themselves in. How many times have they gone through this now? How many times had he slipped into this pathetic, sobbing mess of a man up until now?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> How many times has Akira repeated this same shitty scenario with me? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Too many for him to properly count now. Enough times that Akira has what to do when Goro has an episode down to the tee. Sometimes they go months without it, living blissfully together. Other times, Goro is aware he keeps Akira up night after night such as now, having done this three times in the last week alone. The rainy season always seemed to cause them to be more frequent. </p><p> </p><p>Akira’s arms  wrap around him, holding him still as Goro cries once more. This isn’t the first time, and Goro knows it won’t be the last time, not as long as he would be alive and still carrying the burden of his past deeds. These episodes of anxiety and confusion would never leave him. It’s something Akira has told him many times that he’s willing to accept. </p><p> </p><p>“You’re okay. I’m okay. We’re okay.” Akira repeats the words like a mantra, a promise between them that their dysfunctional relationship would be fine.</p><p> </p><p>“I shot you. I <em> killed </em>you. I’m so sorry, please, I’m so sorry, “ Goro mumbles between sobs. </p><p> </p><p>“I know Goro. I know you are.” Akira doesn’t lean in to touch him more than necessary. He doesn’t make any move that would startle Goro until he’s no longer shaking, but merely letting his head hang on Akira’s shoulder. “ Do you want to go back to sleep?”</p><p> </p><p>Goro doesn’t move, he doesn’t nod or shake his head or anything. Akira pulls away slightly, but Goro pulls him back in and they sit in silence. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s what he needs. </p><p> </p><p>Just a moment, just the two of them. He needs to reaffirm that the only man in the world he’s sure at least gives some short of damn about him is still here. That he hadn’t ruined the single thing in his life that could make him happy back then. That he hadn’t ruined Akira.</p><p> </p><p><em> But I did. </em> </p><p> </p><p>He had ruined him, because now Akira is stuck with him on nights like this. Holding him, comforting and having to pretend that he isn’t a killer. That he didn’t murder the loved ones of his friends. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Akira shouldn’t have to deal with this, he shouldn’t bear the weight of Goro’s crimes as well. </p><p> </p><p>Akira is a good person, and he deserves someone who isn’t broken like Goro. He deserves someone who won’t scream from nightmares in the dead of night. He deserves someone who won’t get anxious or panicky the way Goro does. Akira deserves the world. </p><p> </p><p>So what is it? What is it that keeps Akira close to him?</p><p> </p><p>“I love you,” Akira whispers into his ear. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Love. That’s what he calls it.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>He feels the tears welding up behind his eyes once more. His fingers dig into the fabric of Akira’s shirt as another sob escapes him and he’s crying again. He wants to scream it to him, scream how much he loves Akira. He needs to know. If he didn’t, would he leave?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He would leave and find someone who isn’t as broken as me. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“You’re okay, Goro. Take your time.” He knows he’s going to be okay with Akira here, even if he has to fight himself. He knows Akira loves him.  </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Maybe one day I'll find the strength to leave Akira and allow him the perfect life he deserves. Maybe I can let him go.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>That day isn’t today. And for the time being, he lays against Akira, sobbing and shaking into him as he waits for his world to inevitably fall around him. </p><p> </p><p>He never looked at the time while Akira held him, and Goro really doesn’t know how long they stayed that way. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours as when he opens his eyes next, the clock reading 6:28. Only two minutes before their alarm would go off. </p><p> </p><p>Morgana shifts, curled against his chest and his eyes flutter open when he feels Goro stir. He lets out a low purr, snuggling closer into Goro and nuzzling his head under his chin. In the years that they’ve gotten to know each other, Morgana never fully forgave him, but stated he was willing to be civil and start anew. Get to know the Goro that Akira swears by.</p><p> </p><p>And speaking of which...</p><p> </p><p>“Morning, Goro.” Akira mumbles, kissing the back of his neck. Of course he would be awake. Akira never slept on nights like that. </p><p> </p><p>“Morning, Akira.” Goro runs his fingers through Morgana’s fur, staring blankly at the window where the sun drips into their apartment. Last night seems so far away now, and his mind feels clearer. With the heavy rain from the previous night the sun now shines brightly on a new day.</p><p> </p><p>He knows Akira would never leave him. Akira loves him, no matter how broken he is. Keeping one arm snug around Morgana, Goro reaches for Akira’s hand, but as he does, their alarm rings. However, Akira shuts it off, wrapping himself fully against Goro, “Up for playing hooky today?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> That sounds lovely. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>For the first time in a while, he finally can finally agree with himself. However, they’ve both got work to do and playing hooky would get them nowhere. “No, but…” he leans back into Akira and lets his eyes close. “Five more minutes won’t hurt.”</p><p> </p><p>Akira whines, but buries his face into the back of Goro’s neck. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I’m not perfect… </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Hmm, Akira?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> but… </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“I love you.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He thinks I am.  </em>
</p><p>
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